While these comments do have an air of truth to them, they don’t come close to telling the full story. In reality, there’s a strong argument for Melo putting the Warriors closer to title contention than Kevin Love.

Before examining what it would take to make either move happen, let’s start with on floor production. Anthony’s career 54.7 TS% is slightly above league average (53.5). For a player who dominates the ball so much (31.7 use-age%), you want a more efficient return. For reference, LeBron James and Kevin Durant’s career TS% are in the neighborhood of 60.0 (the benchmark for elite efficiency) on similar usage. Kevin Love’s career TS% is 56.6, much higher than Anthony’s as well.

The problem with using career statistics is, why do I care what either player did at age 19 or 22, when we’re looking to grab them now? They’ve developed their game, become better shooters, smarter players, and when that happens efficiency rises.

So lets compare Carmelo Anthony to Kevin Love over the last 2 seasons:

Player

Games

MPG

PPG

2pt%

3pt%

TS%

RPG

APG

Anthony

144

37.9

28

47.2

39.1

56.1

7.5

2.9

Love

95

35.9

24.6

48.2

35.2

56.8

12.8

4

(Basketball-reference.com)

Anthony has proven more durable (stretched across last 4-5 years this also holds true) and the better long-range shooter. The efficiency and assists slightly skew to Love, and rebounds heavily to Love. Both players get to the free throw line regularly (Anthony 7.3 times per game, Love, 8.2).

The one caveat here is Kevin Love has played almost all his minutes at PF. Carmelo Anthony has played at both SF and PF. When breaking down Anthony’s stats at PF, the scoring numbers become even more similar.

Carmelo Anthony’s TS% at PF last year (per 82games.com) was 56.9 and has risen in lineup combinations pairing him with a pick and roll center (Chandler) and shooters. (For reference Kevin Love’s was 59.1. TS%). Rising efficiency at PF has been a noticeable trend since Anthony arrived to New York. According to Over 4 seasons, his TS% has hovered at 57% at PF, and around his career average of 54.7 at SF (note: in Denver, Carmelo almost never played PF). This happens while Anthony’s point total stays the same. Simply put, at PF, Anthony has more spacing, forces defensive mismatches, gets better looks, and in turn makes them more often.

Anthony’s rebounding rate also rose to 8 per 36 at PF v. his career average of 6.5 (Acceptable range for a PF). Overall Anthony’s PER last season at the PF position was 27.1 v. 22.0 at the SF (Love’s was 26.9).

None of this says Carmelo Anthony is a better PF than Kevin Love. Love is the league’s best rebounder, scorers at a similar rate with slightly better efficiency than Anthony. However in the context of the PF position, it’s closer than the raw numbers and career totals suggest.

How do we even get one?

Kevin Love is under-contract for 2014-15. With Love announcing he won’t resign with Minnesota, the Wolves have begrudgingly began to consider the idea of trading their franchise player so they don’t lose him for nothing.

Minnesota knows Kevin Love’s value, and trading him would signal a rebuild. With so many potential suitors, the price will be steep. Any trade for Love would start with Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes, would likely require trading David Lee with a future pick to a team well under the cap, for a player the Wolves either covet more or have friendly contracts. Add to that, the Warriors would still have to find a way to include future picks on top of it (something they lack) to sway Minnesota. In short, it would be very expensive, and it would likely leave the Warriors without draft picks for a long time.

Carmelo Anthony is an unrestricted free agent, allowing him to pick his destination.

Here’s where it gets difficult. The Warriors are over the cap with $65.1 million in salary committed for 2014-15. Per Larry Coon, “The 2014-15 salary cap is now projected to be $63.2 million and the tax level is projected to be $77.0 million.” Any move for Carmelo Anthony would require clever maneuvering.

The Warriors could attempt to trade Iguodala (or Bogut), David Lee and Barnes contracts for future picks, and clear $30.35 million in cap space taking them down to 34.75 million committed and give themselves enough cap-space to outright sign Carmelo Anthony at the max deal of $22.48. That would only leave them $6 million under the cap to fill a SF or C hole. Finding anyone defensively as valuable as Bogut or Iguodala for 6 mil would be impossible.

A second more creative option would be to trade Barnes and Lee to a rebuilding team willing to take Lee’s contract for Barnes’ potential. A team like Philadelphia or Orlando, who are $30+ million under the cap and still rebuilding, might see the cost of Lee as an offset to get Harrison Barnes. In return the Warriors would get a 2nd round pick and 18 mil Trade Player Exception (TPE). Attach Nedovic and it rises 1.1 million to 19.1 million. That’s less than the max but starts to approach to it point where if Melo wanted to take a discount they could use the TPE + a 1st round pick to New York as compensation to sign Melo.

The TPE is essentially created cap slot for which the team with it can take on salary up to that amount regardless of their cap situation. The Warriors utilized a TPE created by trading Richard Jefferson to Utah, to sign Andre Iguodala. (Miami also gave Cleveland and Toronto TPE’s to attain Bosh and Lebron at their desired compensation).

For this to happen, Carmelo Anthony would have to make his desire to come to Golden State and only Golden State known, and be willing to take a slight discount.

So why Melo?

Both scenarios’ are unlikely. This isn’t Miami in 2010 with one star committed here, and all the cap space to sign whoever they want. But both scenarios’ are possibilities based on players desire to come to the Bay, ability to play hardball with their current employers, and Warriors management creativity in creating the space necessary.

In both players the Warriors would obtain that legitimate 2nd scorer they need to get farther in the playoffs. The question becomes, which one allows the Warriors to keep as much of the core as possible.

With Minnesota having Kevin Love under contract for another season, the sheer amount of assets the Warriors would have to give up to obtain love makes it tricky to know if they could be anywhere near the defensive team they were in 2013/14. And with the Warriors window tied to Iguodala and Bogut’s age (30), the window is now. Obtaining Love, and losing defense to do it, might put them more or less at the same place, low to mid 50 wins, competitive but not in true title contention.

Melo, given his free agency status, it’s possible they wouldn’t have to give up Klay or Iguodala or Bogut to make it happen. It wouldn’t be easy, but if possible, in context of what’s left on the Warrior roster and assets going forward, a move for Carmelo might put them in a better position to compete for a title over next few years than one for Kevin Love, even if you don’t believe Melo is the better player.

5 Responses

this is my own take on Love (lightly) and Melo (seriously not interested)

One of the above author’s (Sam Esfandiari) premises was that bringing in Melo might allow keeping better players around him and Curry than bringing in Love would. When I really looked at the space needed to clear from the cap, I disagree. Curry and Love would likely have just as good players around them.

Next, forget about the rest of the team, Curry and Melo are not as good as Curry and Love.

I just can’t see Melo as a Power Forward in the Western Conference. Lamarcus Aldridge, Blake Griffin, Tim Duncan, Zach Randolf, Serge Ibaka, and even Derrick Favors would beat him up every night.
As a Small Forward for the Warriors, he could bring the scoring, efficiency, and balance that would scare other teams. Curry and Melo on the same team would be interesting and it might work. The biggest problem is the salary cap hit and inevitable luxury tax repeater status, but on the floor, there would be more problems.

Iguodala or Thompson would no longer start. Most likely, Iguodala moves to the Shooting Guard spot and Thompson comes off the bench. Melo would start at the Small Forward. David Lee would likely be traded to make room, and a body would be needed to replace him. Already on the roster, Draymond Green and Festus Ezeli have both started at power forward in the last two playoff appearances and were not terrible, but we don’t want to go into the season like that. Mo Speights is also a possibility here, but realistically is best coming off the bench as well. A free agent replacement for Lee would be needed such as Kris Humphries or Elton Brand. Someone large and cheap.

That’s the kind of compromise we are talking about that comes along with bringing Melo to the Warriors. Add to that years of Luxury Tax hell.

Melo played well with star players around him on the olympic team. you saw a lot of passing going on with him …

it’s conceivable, especially based on what you said, that Melo is a much better team player than he once was when he was younger… with a combo of Curry, Klay and Bogut around him, there’s plenty of options

talk about floor spacing as well? good night

you make a compelling point here… keeping our core defense is essential to making this team a complete team

of course acquiring Love or Melo will hamstring us a bit in snatching up some solid bench players…gawd knows we need a deeper bench (esp if Steve Blake leaves and Barnes is traded)… so there’s that too

it’s also plausible to expect this team can make it even further with some great bench work like we had with Landry and Jack for example… the scoring was pretty constant, even if our main scorers were having a bad night…

it all depends on one thing… which team(s) around the league value Lee? if the market is small(if at all) like some reports suggest…then we could be stuck with him and that’s the end of it.